It was Cardinal Newman's dying wish that he be buried with his closest friend in the grounds of the house they had shared as priests.

But now, nearly 120 years after his death, Britain's most famous convert to Roman Catholicism is to be reinterred in a sarcophagus in preparation for his becoming a saint, leaving the remains of his friend behind.

The decision to separate the remains of John Henry Newman and Ambrose St John has upset figures in the Church and led some to question whether it is embarrassed about their relationship.

They are buried in a grave in a secluded cemetery on the outskirts of Birmingham. But Newman is being moved to the Birmingham Oratory in preparation for his beatification.

Elena Curti, deputy editor of The Tablet  a respected Catholic journal  expressed regret that the cardinal's final request was not being observed.

"It's clearly documented that he wanted to be buried with his close friend and it's a pity that his dying wish is not being respected," she said.

They didn't find much in his grave apart from a few bits of brass and cloth, but they've scraped out what was in his coffin regardless. Still, this was a rather peculiar thing to do. Screw the fact it was his dying wish to be buried next to his friend. Can anyone explain to me how it is justified to violate a man's last will and testament like this for the sake of making him an idolatrous object of veneration?

Martin Prendergast, a homosexual campaigner in the Catholic Church, claimed the Cardinal's relationship had caused misgivings in the Vatican and slowed his path to beatification. "I don't think they can just pretend the relationship didn't exist," he said.

"We shouldn't be afraid of acknowledging that he had his trials and torments yet was able to deal with these in a positive manner, without compromising his commitment to celibacy."

This sinner does not speak for my Church, nor for Cardinal Newman.

5
posted on 10/04/2008 6:15:59 PM PDT
by bdeaner
("It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." --Mother Theresa)

1. The Tablet is a notoriously left-wing "Catholic" paper, in fact it's almost an anti-Catholic paper.

2. The BBC reported that Cardinal Newman's body was not found. That makes it sound like somebody stole it -- but a wooden coffin in damp ground is not going to impeded total decomposition. Nothing about 'scraped out what was in his coffin regardless', unless you simply mean the bits of wood & coffin plate remaining from his coffin. Source?

3. Exhumation is S.O.P. when a cause for sainthood is pending. Certain phenomena such as incorruptible corpses, odor of sanctity, inexplicable preservation of parts of the body (e.g. St. Anthony of Padua's tongue), are observed in the case of some saints.

4. Since they didn't find his body, he wasn't moved, so he got his wish after all.

5. Preservation of the relics of a saint is not idolatrous. Nobody's worshipping the saint's mortal remains! I know plenty of folks find it odd (it's more common in Latin than Northern European countries, but then again Germany has the astounding spectacle of the bejeweled skeleton of St. Munditia, Virgin Martyr, in the Peterskirche.)

Male friendships are now viewed with suspicion, but that's a relatively recent development (and has a lot to do with homosexual campaigners like the man slandering Cdl. Newman and Fr. Ambrose St. John - and you ought to see the story in the Daily Mail!)

As C.S. Lewis commented in his book The Four Loves,

To say that every Friendship is consciously and explicitly homosexual would be too obviously false; the wiseacres take refuge in the less palpable charge that it is really  unconsciously, cryptically, in some Pickwickian sense  homosexual. And this, though it cannot be proved, can never of course be refuted. The fact that no positive evidence of homosexuality can be discovered in the behaviour of two Friends does not disconcert the wiseacres at all: That, they say gravely, is just what we should expect. The very lack of evidence is thus treated as evidence, the absence of smoke proves that the fire is very carefully hidden. . . . 

Hrothgar embracing Beowulf, Johnson embracing Boswell (a pretty flagrantly heterosexual couple) and all those hairy old toughs of centurions in Tacitus, clinging to one another and begging for last kisses when the legion was broken up...all pansies? If you can believe it you can believe anything.

Why is it necessary to move his remains? I do not understand. Is he less holy because his remains are where they are, instead of being someplace else?

To Roman Catholics: Am I wrong for thinking that as soon as I pass on what happens to my body after my departure is irrelevant to my soul? Do saints' remains acquire some special magic, maybe sometime after their death? (I don't see this in the Bible, though I remain puzzled by the Turin shroud -- which among many things tells me indirectly that I do not have all the answers.)

As I implied above, I think disturbing the remains of the dead, unless they're in a location that's not secure, isn't very nice. On your other questions:

Am I wrong for thinking that as soon as I pass on what happens to my body after my departure is irrelevant to my soul?

No, you are correct.

Do saints' remains acquire some special magic, maybe sometime after their death?

The relics of the saints have been used by God as a channel of grace to work miracles. The remains of the prophet Elisha are an Old Testament example. Many of the saints, like Elisha, worked miracles when they were alive, too.

I think it's often just an example of the Cool Old Stuff phenomenon, though. Mummy of Rameses II? Cool! Corpse of Lenin? Eeeew? Varina Davis picked out those curtains herself? TACKY!

19
posted on 10/04/2008 6:49:42 PM PDT
by Tax-chick
("I always expect the worst from the RATS and they always deliver." ~ rrrod)

Well, I guess it doesn't worry me much because I took a lot of archaeology courses in school. Except in extraordinary circumstances, there's not much left after a hundred years or so. In acid soil, as in much of northern England and Scandinavia, you have to carefully peel off paper-thin layers of soil in burial mounds to detect the "corpse shadows" - a slight difference in soil color caused by the decomposition of the bones. It looks more like an X-ray than anything else.

And I was fascinated as a child by the preserved corpse of one Mr. Hogenboom, who died in the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic in the 1790s and was buried in a corner of the graveyard that was saturated with limestone water . . . so he was saponified, i.e. turned to soap. They have taken him off exhibit in a fit of political correctness since I was a kid, though.

But if you don't get dug up, eventually you get excavated by a bulldozer or paved over for a subdivision . . . .

For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth. And I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I will see my God. Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this my hope is laid up in my bosom.

Not to those who understand Christian friendship. You might want to read Aelred of Rievaulx’s twelfth century classic called Spiritual Friendship (Cistercian Fathers 5, $12.95). I assume I’ll be buried in my family plot, but I wouldn’t fret over being buried with my Christian brothers and sisters who are as dear to me as any family member. I also would not mind if my heart were interred at Altotting (but I’m not a Wittelsbach).

22
posted on 10/04/2008 6:57:32 PM PDT
by vladimir998
(Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)

Be sure to ask for it, but be sure you want it . . . my hair's been straight as a board all my life and will not take ANY curl at all, and no clip or barrette will hold it. Makes it hard to have a "hair-do"!

I remember my university teaching days when I worked in a department that taught the Epic of Gilgamesh to almost every student in the university. The latest fad was to talk about the “homoerotic subtext” of the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. When I questioned this obvious idiocy, one of my colleagues - a flaming liberal - said, “Well, the text says that Gilgamesh loved Enkidu.” To that I responded, “Yes, and it also says Gilgamesh loved his sword. That doesn’t me he had sex with it.”

Not surprisingly the conversation ended on that point. I love it when that happens.

24
posted on 10/04/2008 7:02:47 PM PDT
by vladimir998
(Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)

Who is “he”? If he were Jewish, would that mean I would find it “creepy” he was buried with a lifelong friend who shared his work? No, I don’t think so. Jewish burial societies, Chevra kadisha, used to purchase land so that Jews could bury friends and family members according to Jewish customs - and apparently that included burying friends along with families they were not related to. I do find the Gibraltar Jewish community’s habit of NOT burying husbands and wives together odd, however. I guess since they were never allowed to sit side-by-side in synagogue so in death....

31
posted on 10/04/2008 8:13:08 PM PDT
by vladimir998
(Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)

**In official Church procedures there are three steps to sainthood: one becomes Venerable, Blessed and then a Saint. Venerable is the title given to a deceased person recognized as having lived heroic virtues. To be recognized as a blessed, and therefore beatified, in addition to personal attributes of charity and heroic virtue, one miracle, acquired through the individual’s intercession, is required. Canonization requires two, though a Pope may waive these requirements. Martyrdom does not usually require a miracle. **

George Washington was very fond of the Marquis de Lafayette. Guess old George was gay in your opinion.

Forget I said anything. Washington had a wife and children and never asked to be buried with his friend. George was never a high ranking member of an organization that has historically had a homosexual problem.

George was never a high ranking member of an organization that has historically had a homosexual problem.

Also false, Washington was in the army, which has such a noticeable homosexual problem that it had to institute rules to prevent it. Rules which did not exist at his time. And Washington was buried with a friend, his 'wife' Martha, who was certainly a good friend.

I found this article along with many others on the Holy Cross Cardinal Newman Site:

“AIDS has quietly caused the deaths of hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in the United States although other causes may be listed on some of their death certificates, the Kansas City Star reported today. The newspaper said its examination of death certificates and interviews with experts indicates several hundred priests have died of AIDS-related illnesses since the mid-1980s. The death rate of priests from AIDS is at least four times that of the general population, the newspaper said. Kansas City Bishop Raymond Boland says the AIDS deaths show that priests are human.”

First this number is about one tenth of one percent of the priests who have served in the US in the last 50 years. Second. the general population includes women, who are much less likely to get aids then men, priests or not.

You are talking about a few hundred priests out of the 110,000 who have served in the last 50 years.

It has been my experience that those who are obsessed about homosexuality, and make unproven and unproveable charges of this condition tend to be a little light in the loafers themselves (see Mark Foley).

If that rag reported that Sarah Palin had once starred in a donkey show in a Tijuana brothel, you’d be quick to realize they were lying. Yet when they print this garbage, you’re all over it like a duck on a june bug.

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